Breaking the Ice using Mushrooms

Breaking the Ice using Mushrooms

 

By: Adele Delignette, Ea Kirkland-Woodward, Sarah Quenemoen

 

COVID-19 and the resulting Zoom University has resulted in a noticeable, and somewhat unmanageable, lack of connection. Every day is more or less the same, with an insurmountable chasm in the realm of social relationship development. Face to face conversations with classmates and strangers is a concept that feels one million miles away. Spending hours online a day, however, makes it easy to forget the privilege that being a student during a pandemic holds. If it weren’t for the technology we have access to and all the spare time we’ve been forced into, what would life be looking like? Zoom University, at first thought, seems like a chore worth complaining about. But is the ability to connect and converse with our peers in the midst of a pandemic not a blessing? 

With this in mind, we attempted to make this reading seminar into a space that would play into the hopes of real, personal conversation. Our group for the class Readings in Environmental Justice was tasked with leading one seminar discussion based on the assigned readings for the week (The Mushroom at the End of the World by Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing). We, as the class facilitators for the week, wanted the ability to learn about our peers for who they are, what they like to do, and what knowledge they might hold that pertains to matters of the book. Setting the stage for a conversation about our peers as individuals, not solely about the reading, looked like simply asking about our peers and their experiences. Our first question was “what stood out to you?”, which we asked in hopes to get our classmates to share personal details as they related to the book. It worked! Through this discussion, I learned that a classmate of mine had spent some time living in Africa, and was able to draw connections between her life there and the life described in the book. Getting to know the people that I am learning alongside from, and sharing the tumultuous feelings related to Zoom University with, felt like a piece of normality that had been missing since March of 2020. The limitations imposed by a typical seminar-style discussion about required readings feel too academic and structured for what our group was trying to achieve. By asking vague questions and suggesting that they would most easily be answered by relating them to lived experiences, it was successfully indicated that the purpose was not to analyze the text, but to get to know one another.

It was interesting to note how much was taken away from this class. The value of being able to connect with our peers as people as opposed to only students is taken for granted during this time of scary isolation and uncertainty. By imposing such a loose structure to guide our discussion, our class was able to, in little bits and pieces, share a moment of humaneness that perhaps has been lost for many of us. Tsing gave us something to talk about and share together through her story of mushrooms and capitalism. Overall, it was a nice reminder that community is stronger than the division imposed on us.